Working with AdapterViews (Binding to Data)

As we mentioned, some view groups have UI. These objects typically subclass AdapterView. Examples include such as Gallery (an image selection widget) and ListView (a list of views). These objects have two jobs in common:

• Filling the layout with data
• Handling user selections

Filling the layout with data

This is typically done by binding the class to an Adapter that gets its data from somewhere — either a list that the code supplies, or query results from the device's database.

// Get a Spinner and bind it to an ArrayAdapter that 
// references a String array.
Spinner s1 = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner1);
ArrayAdapter adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(
    this, R.array.colors, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
s1.setAdapter(adapter);

// Load a Spinner and bind it to a data query.
private static String[] PROJECTION = new String[] {
        People._ID, People.NAME
    };

Spinner s2 = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner2);
Cursor cur = managedQuery(People.CONTENT_URI, PROJECTION, null, null);
     
SimpleCursorAdapter adapter2 = new SimpleCursorAdapter(this,
    android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item, // Use a template
                                          // that displays a
                                          // text view
    cur, // Give the cursor to the list adatper
    new String[] {People.NAME}, // Map the NAME column in the
                                         // people database to...
    new int[] {android.R.id.text1}); // The "text1" view defined in
                                     // the XML template
					 
adapter2.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
s2.setAdapter(adapter2);

Note that it is necessary to have the People._ID column in projection used with CursorAdapter or else you will get an exception.

Handling user selections

This is done by setting the class's AdapterView.OnItemClickListener member to a listener and catching the selection changes.

// Create a message handling object as an anonymous class.
private OnItemClickListener mMessageClickedHandler = new OnItemClickListener() {
    public void onItemClick(AdapterView parent, View v, int position, long id)
    {
        // Display a messagebox.
        Toast.makeText(mContext,"You've got an event",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }
};

// Now hook into our object and set its onItemClickListener member
// to our class handler object.
mHistoryView = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.history);
mHistoryView.setOnItemClickListener(mMessageClickedHandler);